Technical Field
Embodiments generally relate to network services.
Background
Networks may provide connections between clients subject to service level agreements (SLAs) specifying characteristics and performance guarantees. For example, clients may establish a virtual Ethernet connection with a specified dedicated bandwidth.
Networks may also provide clients with statistics, reports, and other information related to the performance of the services. For example, clients may wish to see how much their traffic is delayed by the network, whether the service is meeting SLAs, whether the network is causing a bottleneck, etc. Typically, the endpoints in a network connection can measure end-to-end network metrics (e.g., response time, throughput, jitter). However, by measuring network performance from the endpoints the clients may not know what portion of the path is causing any delays, or whether a particular service employed is performing satisfactorily.
To estimate traffic performance (response time, throughput, jitter), many utilities do not track the traffic itself. Instead, they transmit additional packets that run alongside the regular network traffic and measure how the network transmits those packets.
While this may have some benefits, it may not always be accurate because the network may handle different packets in different ways. Also, by transmitting additional packets, these utilities put additional load on the network, affecting its performance.
Also, these utilities measure overall traffic flowing through its network components. However, traditional approaches are unable to measure network performance on a per application or per service basis.